By Giuseppe Fonte
ROME, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Italy has set tough terms on personal data protection to clear Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com’s takeover of German electronics retailer Ceconomy, a government decree seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.
Using its so-called “golden power” legislation, Italy reserves the right to block or impose conditions on domestic and foreign deals affecting the country’s strategic assets.
As part of the $2.5 billion German-Chinese deal, 144 retail stores in Italy, mainly part of the MediaWorld chain, have changed hands. Ceconomy’s Mediamarket, MediaMarktSaturn Platform Services Italia and Imtron Italia are part of the transaction.
The Rome government ruled that the Italian target companies should keep consumers’ personal data separate from JD.com and its subsidiaries, the decree, still unpublished, showed. It had given conditional approval to the deal last month.
“Access to the critical mass of personal data held by Ceconomy poses a significant and concrete threat to the security of the country and, potentially, to other [European] member states as well,” it said.
Austria also asked for clarification about the implications of the deal in exchanges with the Italian government, the document added.
To support its decision to impose tough conditions, the government added that Ceconomy held personal data on around 21.62 million Italian customers.
JD.com has however pledged to protect personal data of Italian consumers and store it exclusively in European data warehouses, the document added.
JD.com, which competes with Alibaba and Amazon, has accelerated its global expansion in recent years.
The Italian move comes amid growing alarm in European capitals that China is progressively diverting goods at lower prices to EU markets as a way of making up for lost U.S. trade, following the tariff policies adopted by President Donald Trump.
Italy also asked the companies involved to avoid sharing personal data on a massive scale with entities outside the EU or to do so while ensuring the compliance with the government-set terms.
(Reporting by Giuseppe FonteEditing by Keith Weir)
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